HISTORY OF THE WHALE. 87 



curs in southern latitudes, as will be afterwards noticed. 

 Captain Scorseby, in 1816, first investigated the peculiari- 

 ties of the green-water. This accomplished naturalist 

 states, that it forms perhaps one-fourth part of the Green- 

 land sea, between the parallels of 74 and 80, equal to 

 about twenty thousand square miles. Though it is liable 

 to alteration of position from the action of currents, still it 

 is always found, year after year, near certain situations. It 

 often constitutes long bands or streams, of varying length 

 and breadth, extending 2 or 3 of latitude in length, and 

 from a few miles to thirty or forty in breadth. It is usually 

 an olive-green, and of striking opacity ; sometimes it is 

 nearly grass-green, or with a shade of black. 



Mr. Scorseby examined the qualities of this water, and, 

 to his astonishment, found that it obtained its color from 

 the presence of immense numbers of animalcules, most of 

 them invisible without the aid of the microscope. The 

 greatest number consisted of the madusa kind, belonging to 

 an order with which most of our readers will be familiar, 

 under the vulgar name of sea-blubber, a soft gelatinous 

 substance, often found lying on the sea shore, and exhibit- 

 ing no signs of life, except shrinking when touched. He 

 found the prevailing specimens to be globular, transparent, 

 and from one-twentieth to one-thirtieth of an inch in 

 diameter. The number of medusa was found to be im- 

 mense. Mr. S. estimates that two square miles contained 

 23,888,000,000,000,000 ; and as this number is above the 

 range of human thought, he illustrates it by observing, that 

 80,000 persons must have started at the creation of the 

 world to complete the enumeration at the present time. 

 These animalculae are not to be considered as the imme- 

 diate food of the whale ; they form, however, the food of 

 the various shrimps and minute crabs, lobsters, and sea 

 snails, upon which the monster of the deep is supported. 

 Thus we can see at one glance the common food of this 



